Feeding the Beast

A tough decision to take, but a potentially necessary one Photo Credit: WWE.com

The finishes to last night's final two matches at Money in the Bank nonplussed a lot of fans from where I sat. Hell, I would be lying if I wrote that I was happy with them. I wasn't necessarily expecting Mark Henry to defeat John Cena, but him tossing aside every obstacle that Henry presented felt way too easy for the threat that Henry presented. With the RAW Money in the Bank match, I almost expected Randy Orton to win, but given that he's usually on my shit list, it didn't make the call any easier to take in. However, no matter how hard a pill it was for me or anyone to swallow, those decisions could be argued to be necessary evils.

I don't want to build a straw man to say that all "smark" fans have this mindset that WWE should constantly be building up new talent, and if you're established, you should lose. I don't think I know anyone who espouses that mindset at all, but judging from Twitter reactions, it can be hard to exercise the reason needed to sift out individuals making claims and not mix it all together in some melting pot of malaise. Every time Cena, Orton, Sheamus, or Triple H win, there's going to be a multitude of voices screaming displeasure, especially when it's against someone that is generally viewed of as an up-and-comer.

However, what is it that makes a win special? Would CM Punk's title victory at Money in the Bank two years ago felt as awesome, even without the trappings of his apparent departure and accompanying pipe bomb, if Cena spent the last year losing to R-Truth and The Miz and Jack Swagger and everyone else put in front of him? No, Punk would have been put in the same category as R-Truth, The Miz, and Jack Swagger, among others. If you establish a guy as the franchise, then unless your overarching story is going to mimic National Football League-style parity, then that guy should probably have an elite winning percentage. In wrestling, elite means that you lose a handful of times in a year where it's not uncommon to work once-to-twice a week on free television in addition to once a month on pay-per-view.

With Orton, the story gets a bit murkier. He's been proven to be a wrestler on a stratum below Cena in the pecking order. He's either not reliable enough to draw as a top guy, or WWE is too skittish to put any meaningful story behind him because they're afraid he'll piss hot the next time he gets the title. Still though, he's got an over finisher, and they've saddled him with the gimmick of "The guy who wins." For better or worse, he's at the very least a gatekeeper, a guy that people feud with in order to prove worthiness at the top of the card.

Again, if Orton just jobbed to anyone all the time, would Daniel Bryan defeating him on RAW three weeks ago, even as telegraphed as it was because of the redo, have felt as special? Again, Bryan's on a different plane than most of the people who've feuded with Orton, and that includes his own tag partner Kane.

Now, there are definite problems that I have with the way WWE keeps perpetuating how they win. I noted that Cena shrugging off Henry's weight and two different cheating mechanisms like they were pillows on his shoulder felt amazingly cheap. It's also worth noting that I feel Henry is on a similar plane as Punk and Bryan right now, even though he's in the twilight of his career. Still, those kinds of wins do a lot to sustain the aura around Cena. It's all a matter in how those victories are booked. It's all about showing vulnerability, and how it's alright not to Superman the shit out of an opponent all the time and then laugh it off the next night because reasons.

In that vein, I think Orton has done a far better job at showing his own mortality against a wider variety of opponents. It used to be that he wouldn't even bump hard for anyone outside of those at or above his level. His feud with Christian in 2011 was a prime example of his artificial invincibility. However, in the last couple of months, he's been a lot more giving in the ring, and many of his victories have felt Pyrrhic in nature. He's nowhere near the best on the roster, but he's becoming adequate at carrying himself as a main eventer who wins a lot but doesn't feel like he's always going to win.

That being said, no amount of context is going to allay all the complaints about Orton and Cena winning at the top of the card all the time, and that's okay. There will always be backlash, and heck, I might just partake in said blowback from time to time. However, it doesn't change the fact that as long as anyone is a viable, main event guy in a major wrestling company, they need to be fed wins in all situations. There's a right time and a wrong time for someone under the main event to win. Believe me, when that big win does happen, like in the event that Cena drops the WWE Championship to Bryan, the aura of invincibility will only provide that much more of a shining corona around the blinding light that victory will provide for the fans.